Meditation on Sleep

Sleep as travel, sleep as spirit, sleep as country, sleep as grammar, sleep as diversity, sleep as hospitality, sleep that catches you

Drawing of figure with white dress and long black hair holding onto a small train. Seven round signs float in yellow and gray background.
1Peng Wu, In Between Sleep and Wake, 2021.

1. Sleep-Spirit

Growing up in Japan, I had believed that sleep was a certain type of force, a spirit, that entered into our bodies. Our weakened bodies had a certain scent that the sleep-spirit could sense; the spirit surrounded us and seamlessly slipped into our body. In retrospect, my imagination was inspired by the power of sleep. There was no way of not sleeping once the sleep-spirit touched us. For me, the sleep-spirit generally sat just above my eyes, pressing my eyelids with dull weight at such inconvenient times: a math class after lunch, walking home after my fencing practice, in my room trying to study for exams. Growing up in the 90s, being able to fight through the sleep-spirit was the sign of a committed individual. I constantly hid my sleepiness. I didn’t want to be seen as weak, lazy, or uncommitted. 

There was one place in Japan where everyone had permission to sleep: on the trains. Most people sitting on seats were sleeping. Some passengers slept so deeply that their heads fell onto the shoulder of the stranger sitting next to them. Some passengers had their mouths wide open and I could see their gold crowns inside. Passengers rocked back and forth with the movement of the train. Those who stood hanging on the railing also had their eyes closed. It was as if the sleep-spirit lived inside the trains. At the time, seeing the deep sleep of strangers resting collectively on trains felt normal. Inside trains, we sleep. I didn’t realize how this scene would be perceived by others until I saw the surprised reaction of travelers from overseas. Why do Japanese people sleep on trains? Why are they so tired? Sleeping is what we do in a private space, yet why are they sleeping so deeply in such a public place? 

On the train, we are always in between places. We have left home, trying to get to a destination. In this space of in-between, the sleep-spirit finds our bodies being carried and rocked as if we have become babies in cradles. Our alertness cracks, and the sleep-spirit finds a way into our psyche. Like a cold virus entering into our body with a weakened immune system. Instead of getting sick, we become sleepy.

2. Sleep-Language

When I came to the United States at the age of 15, I struggled with the fundamental rule of sentence formation: subject + verb + object. In English, a sentence must contain a subject in order to make sense. We must define who or what is taking the action. Following this rule, I taught myself to use the subject, “I,” which is largely dismissed in Japanese. Speaking in English requires a different mindset. Initially, it felt inaccurate, especially describing the state of sleep. “I fall asleep. I wake up.” The “I” seems to be in control when, in fact, my sleep or the state of being awake was influenced by something other than the “I.” 

Worse yet, an object often needs a pronoun. People ask, “How was your sleep?” Was the sleep mine? Was my sleep different from your sleep? The essence of the question might be how I connected with sleep the night before, but no one forms such an awkward question. In English, I am constantly wondering who owns the object. “My sleep” sounded strange, as if I could own this mysterious entity called sleep. I could not simply reply, “sleep was good;” this “sleep” needed to be attached to someone, somehow. Sleep happened to me; I became awake when sleep left me; did sleep happen to you? This is the way I would speak, unconventional and grammatically wrong. 

In Japanese, there are several kanji (Chinese) characters to describe sleep. The common one is sleep (睡) which is made of two characters: eyes (目), dripping (垂). “Going to sleep” or “sleeping” is expressed in just one kanji character, 寝, but it has multiple meanings: lying down, sleeping, resting, being in an ancestral, spiritual space, and quitting. How this word was formed to represent sleep reflects the depth of sleep. Connecting to sleep isn’t just about a physical motion (lying down on bed), a shift in state (from awake to sleep), or healing impact (rest.) Dreaming, which occurs during sleep, is also considered mysterious and spiritual, perhaps in a way that we get in touch with our ancestors. But most of all, sleep is about not doing, not acting. Not doing. This seemed impossible. 

We travel from being awake to being asleep by “falling,” in English. What a strong motion to describe the action of sleep! In fact, falling isn’t a natural action for humans. Things that can fall naturally do seem to exist in nature: the cascade of a waterfall, raindrops falling from the sky. But for humans, falling isn’t safe. Falling requires practice, preparation, and courage. The sports that use falling, such as gymnastics, diving, and skydiving, all come with training, and even then, the risks of physical injury exist. Is falling asleep similar to the way divers jump off the board and hit the surface of the pool? Or is falling asleep similar to the way we fall in love? And when we can’t fall asleep or fall in love, is it because we didn’t jump properly? Or is it the failure of gravity? 

Our expressions reveal our expectations or assumptions. The expression “falling asleep” may suggest that we can let go at ease. Unable to let go, we fail… Even though we don’t mean to judge, the way we use language discloses expectations. Linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson describe the orientation of metaphors as specifically influenced by our cultural and physical experiences, including directional expressions.1 Having control is often associated with “up,” as in, “I have control over you.” Not having control is “down,” as in, “I am under a lot of pressure.” Thus the expression of waking “up” may be understood as a state we have control over. We unconsciously expect people to be able to wake up and stay up. During my teenage years in the 90s, this expectation to stay up and not be lazy was verbally expressed by adults in my life. It still lives in the way I use language today. 

In English, I feel responsible for the act of sleep. “My” sleep is determined by the way I fall. In Japanese, I am hoping the sleep-spirit would find me at night and not bother me during the day. The travel between being awake and falling asleep makes me feel as though I am an immigrant to the country called sleep. To enter into this country, I stand in a long line holding my passport, hoping to be granted permission to walk through the gate. In this sense, “falling” hardly explains the way I arrive in the sleep country. I wait, wait, and walk through the gate, into sleep. 

3. Sleep-Space

If the navigation of being awake and falling asleep resembles the life of immigrants, perhaps humans are all immigrants traveling back and forth between those two countries every day. Back in 1901, Edith Franklin Wyatt, a poet and social activist, expressed wonderment on traveling to sleep: 

Sleep
Where do I go
Down roads of sleep, 
Behind the blue-brimmed day? 
No more I know her silvered sweep
Nor colors clear nor gray, 
Nor women’s ways
Nor those of men, 
Nor blame, nor praise. 
Where am I, then?2

Wyatt’s description of sleep as a place reminds me of the disoriented state of my mind when I travel internationally. “Where am I?” is often my first thought when I wake up on the first day I arrive in Japan. Waking up on my futon on the tatami floor, I don’t feel as though I know where I am. Of course I know where I am, but I’m not where I think I am. It could be jet lag or the exhaustion from the long flight from the United States. But mostly, this sensation comes from having moved from one world to another. Just yesterday, I was in the United States. Now I am in Japan. Logically, everything makes sense. Yet emotionally, this shift feels like falling into a gap that I have no name for. It feels upsetting, yet I am not really upset. For a few days, this feeling of not knowing where I am lives inside me. I see crowds of Japanese people with serious gazes passing by, and they all have black hair. Then I look at myself and realize that I, too, have black hair and look just like those Japanese people. I have always known that my hair is black and that I look Japanese. Noticing how surprised I am by the reality I had known for all my life makes me question if I am really awake.

Immigrants often talk about becoming foreigners to their own country and that they are always in between. They are always on the trains. They live with this sensation of wondering if they are really awake and here. As we sleep, we are not going anywhere, yet we are in a different space. The complex thoughts we held are still inside us, but there is a distance from these thoughts. The distance I feel from my own country while still being the native of that country feels like the sleep-space Wyatt described: “Nor colors, clear nor gray/Nor women’s ways/Nor those of men.” The neutrality of this space may feel open and vast. It may feel a bit lonely, but it is also freeing, as if this in-between space is a truce between the new and old countries. 

4. Sleep-Truce

Recalling the toxic message that getting sleepy was a sign of an uncommitted, lazy individual, I am dumbfounded today. Such fundamental information about what we all do, sleep, was communicated in a harmful way. Sleep is both a necessity and a gift. This is vividly expressed by the Argentine writer and poet, Jorge Luis Borges, in the beginning of his poem, “Sleep.” 

Sleep
If sleep is truce, as it is sometimes said, 
A pure time for the mind to rest and heal, 
Why, when they suddenly wake you, do you feel 
That they have stolen everything you had? 
It strips us of a gift so strange, so deep3

I sense the anger, grief, and shock at the moment of waking up from Borges’ expression. When we return to the world of being awake, it feels as though everything was stolen from us. I imagine that many could relate to the grief from leaving the sleep space.

Not taking a break from being awake can kill us. This is true for all, but urgently true for those who struggle with mental health issues. From the moment they wake up, they work with their own thoughts and feelings, infused with sharpness, heaviness, darkness, numbness, and emptiness. How difficult it is to be awake with all these thoughts and feelings… “If sleep is truce, […] a pure time for the mind to rest and heal,” not being able to get to this time is a burden. And the journey back from sleep to return to these thoughts and feelings isn’t easy. Without the sleep-truce, the sense of helplessness and hopelessness easily overfills them. 

 “I just don’t want to be here anymore.” 

This is the statement I often hear from the adolescents in psychiatric treatment for whom I facilitate creative writing workshops. Listening to their writing, it is as if they have become immigrants to their own beings. They don’t want to be themselves. They don’t want to live in their bodies, minds, beings, on this earth. But if not here, where can they go? We can never walk away from ourselves, yet what is inside us, the accumulated negative thoughts about ourselves, have hardened and are hurting us. Suicidal thoughts emerge and float constantly on the surface, as death seems like the only way out of this constant pain. 

Loosening what has hardened inside them is the daily practice of adolescents with mental health issues. I imagine them sitting with the ropes of negative thoughts and patiently untying the tight knots. In the midst of this hard work, sleep might be one way to take a break from their own being. If so, how do these adolescents travel back and forth between being awake and being asleep? Is it as easy as “falling,” or as unpredictable as “catching,” which is the way I find my sleep? This question led to, first, writing a poem about my own process of finding sleep. 

Sleep Mantra 
 
Pretty Pink Paper Pig Penelope.
         I repeat.
                  Pretty Pink      Paper Pig        Penelope.
Still, I’m not falling         
asleep.       I want to fall 
                   asleep, but so many ideas (good and bad) 
       find me and sit in front of my brain like a friend                    
       waiting on the front step. 
I don’t say, let me sleep because if I do,
         I’d get mad for not catching            my sleep. 
 
So I close my eyes. 
I begin folding a pink piece of origami paper inside my head until it becomes 
a pig, Penelope, 
         who is as neutral as oxygen, who holds no 
                 opinion about the way I sleep—
                        I fold her again and again, 
                               like a prayer repeated, 
                                 until it’s all Penelopes 
                                            in my mind.

Then I read it out loud to the adolescents during my writing class. I could hear the playful sound of my own sleep mantra, which doesn’t have any meaning, but the silly sound comforts me. I explained how I think of sleep as something that I have to catch, but when I try to catch it, I can’t. Instead, I need to wait to be caught by sleep. 

“How about you? How does your sleep arrive?” I asked. I encouraged everyone to select a simile to describe what the arrival of sleep is like. What the adolescents shared was vivid, imaginative, and deeply authentic. 

It is like snow because sleep never arrives when the room is too warm; each snowflake accumulates to create a snowbank which is the form of sleep. 
 
Or sleep appears the way the sun appears after a storm passes. But many expressed that tremendous patience is required of them to get to their sleep. 
 
Sleep is like watching wet paint drying, yet no matter how long they wait, it never gets dry.
 
Sleep is like a bee flying around with a buzzing sound; they are afraid of it yet they can't catch it. 
 
Sleep is like a train that is leaving the station; they run to try to catch it, yet the train continues to run fast enough that they cannot reach it. 
 
Sleep is like climbing a mountain that has no peak. 
 
Sleep is like running through hard rain, shivering, trying to find shelter.

In their words sleep is, indeed, a spirit. It teases them with the promise of rest, yet to actually get to the sleep-space seems impossible. 

Still, listening to each other’s words on sleep, its movement and arrival felt deeply meaningful. There is so much beauty in their expressions. They created their own and precise sleep-language to describe the search and travel to get to the sleep space. 

5. Sleep Mantra

“What kind of imagination do you think might help you fall asleep?” 

I invite the adolescents to explore this question. “If sleep is truce, […] a pure time for the mind to rest and heal,” yet we cannot get there, the alternative place seemed to be our imagination. What is soothing and comforting is different for every person. What do we imagine while we wait for the sleep-spirit to enter into our psyche? 

Repetition might be my modality. Inside my mind, I fold pink origami paper into a pig. It only has nine folds. I need something simple to be repeated in my head. But hardly anyone had the same thought. 

Paying attention to the crack of the window and imagine how the soothing wind is coming and touching their face. 
 
Listening to the rain hitting the roof as if to give the heartbeats to the house. 
 
Meeting someone famous yet having a low-key conversation about something real because famous people don’t always get to talk about ordinary things. 
 
Not counting but picturing the numbers and seeing them float in their minds.

I was invited to all kinds of magical spaces filled with details related to a path to sleep. I also thought about one of the definitions of sleep in the Japanese kanji character, 寝 (sleep): “not doing.” If our mind holds sharp thoughts inside, we can sit next to this sharpness. Sit quietly. Don’t rush. Imagine and observe what captures our attention enough without becoming too rigorous. Wait for the sleep-spirit to find us. 

6. Sleep Diversity 

I first heard the term “sleep diversity” from Peng Wu, an interdisciplinary artist who creates social practice and participatory opportunities for social change, and Dr. Michael Howell, an associate professor, researcher, and expert in the relationship between sleep and the brain in the Department of Neurology at the University of Minnesota. Wu and Dr. Howell collaborated for a year to explore ways to enhance sleep therapy by applying both scientific and artistic perspectives. Wu also has trouble with his sleep. Thus this collaboration also included a patient’s perspective. During their collaboration, they examined the culture of sleep. Dr. Howell commented, “The most important unrecognized form of diversity is circadian diversity.” 

Sleep diversity: everyone sleeps differently. 

This simple and obvious concept isn’t in the collective awareness. Rather, there is a common narrative of the majority: at night, we fall asleep, and in the morning, we get up. Wu and Dr. Howell described that people who do not fall into the common narrative blame themselves. Being awake in the middle of the night, they tell themselves, “I should be sleeping now.” They close their eyes, try harder, and become frustrated. “I need my sleep. If I don’t get it, I will suffer through work again tomorrow.” They become worried and anxious. Lying down in bed, they tell themselves, “I can’t do what others can so easily do: fall asleep.” Feeling inferior and alone, they are farther away from the sleep truce. 

Language matters. This means we each have to invent our own sleep-language to accurately reflect the way we sleep, find sleep, and comfort us while we wait for our sleep’s arrival. What if everyone began describing their sleep in their own way, as the adolescents in my creative writing class did? 

7. Sleep Hospitality

Growing up in Japan as the daughter of parents who hosted many dinner parties, my mother taught me the art of hospitality. I learned that a dinner party begins before people gather by preparing food we know they will like—safe food—and food that they can try and may like—adventure food. A successful dinner party begins the moment the guests walk into the dining room. They arrive, knowing that they have been thought of, and that the host is aware of their preferences. Then they walk to the dining table filled with beautifully presented and arranged food. They see that they have options. When being cared for, beauty and flexibility are combined, magically, and the dinner tastes delicious. In order for food to become delicious, guests must feel safe, comfortable and accepted, including those that cannot eat certain foods. 

I have come to think of sleep diversity through the lens of hospitality. Understanding that people sleep differently can be like a dinner party with a caring host. Growing the awareness of sleep diversity needs beautiful and thoughtful experiences and vivid descriptive writing rooted in imagination. The content might express difficulty, but each paragraph is uniquely precise, and thus beautiful. 

Falling asleep, an important and necessary ritual we enact every day, requires attention, care, and our own authentic expression. Imagination helps us reflect on the shape of our sleep. Healing begins by bypassing all the layers of judgmental narratives, finding our sleep language to describe our experiences. 

Walking down the street, I see many houses with signs posted: “All are welcome here.” 

The same is true for sleep. All are welcome. 

Letters to the Doctor

Bedsheets become a surface for writing by a fictional patient: excavating reality and fantasy, sexuality and symbolism of the unconscious

Watercolor of red anatomical heart dripping blood, surrounded by pink flowers with red root system.
1Gluklya, Who has a bigger wound?, 2021.

Dear Katya,

I bring here the notes that I found while I was working as an artist in a participatory project in the psychiatric clinic near the U. metro station. The notes were written by Tanya, a girl who was hospitalized there. 

Tanya is no longer with us, so I can publish them.

Yet, when she was still alive, she said that she’d be glad if I were to publish her notes accompanied by my illustrations.

Tanya wrote letters to a mysterious doctor. I have tried to find him, but failed. I might have a proposition that she probably made him up to survive in our world.

The letters saved her in the darkest of times, and she used to say repeatedly that they drive the pain away from life.

Gluklya


letter 1

A doctor came to my house to treat pneumonia
I was about six years old so it seems
I remember only the color of his being — golden beige
His hair was glowing 
I loved him
To astonish the doctor I began drawing inner bodily organs
But they turned out strange — I did not know what they were supposed to look like
Sometimes I write letters to the doctor to remain open to a gentle, careful dialogue and to be able to reinvent, while preserving a healthy vulnerability

letter 2

It becomes harder and harder to remain a child, doctor
Yesterday two nurses came and informed me that it is time to grow up 
Time to get up on my feet
And what color of feet do you mean?
I asked
They did not answer (possibly my question embarrassed them) they just shook their heads and left confused
 
Yellow peonies and golden globes came swaying above me
I became terribly joyous for some reason and imagined them swinging around me like snowflakes
I began catching them with my hands and couldn’t stop
They were everywhere and I jumped about the room catching them joyfully with my hands 
 
NV came and took me away to the reality room
I spent the night there till dawn until the door was finally unlocked as I needed to visit the toilet
In the toilet I saw the water that someone before me forgot to flush — it was deep blue 
I could hardly hold back screaming 
But I did hold back because children are always positive unless it’s war or their parents are sadists 
Instead of screaming I began singing my childhood song I heard from my favorite aunt Maria
It was Aleksandr Vertinsky’s song “I am a little ballerina”

Watercolor figure with gray coat, gray boots, orange tights, green hood, and blank face.
Gluklya, Abused child, 2020.
I’ve been thinking lately why I love Aunt Maria more than my other relatives
 
Possibly it is because when speaking to me she touched on what really mattered?
 
She managed all the orphan houses in Tambovsky region and has always delivered speeches on inaugurations
Aunt Maria was an orator — she loved delivering speeches — her loud voice had a well-trained soprano quality
 
Maria was never to become a mother herself (because of her childbearing organ position it was attached just right to her back instead of serving the reproductive need normally)
 
Maria’s story is as follows:
I remember her — a beautiful tall woman with blue eyes (without a tincture of grayish-green — just a deep blue color)
Which was a breathtaking contrast with her absolute black hair
An austere somewhat even severe face capped by this dry pitch black hair that never turned gray
She used to meet dad and me at the airport with a bouquet of peonies, wearing high heels and a red coat.
There was a black car with a driver in the background (she had a personal driver)
When we arrived — the table had already been set
How much I loved her apartment — all covered with carpets in rusty red and brown! How soft they were to lie upon!
To lie down on my belly and browse through the album with famous women — Aunt Maria used to cut them out of magazines The Woman Worker and Flame and leisurely paste them on the album’s pages
Watercolor of gray torso with dark red pool and vein pattern in chest area.
Gluklya, Dress of Accomplishment, 2019.
It was my mother who told me her secret
They’ve dispatched Maria to Dagestan
She studied well in school — was an achiever — graduated with all As
Just such achievers were sent to conquer the wilderness — teaching ignorant children in the mountain auls of the Soviet republics
They’ve sent Maria to Dagestan village at the high mountains 
She had to get married there since after spending a night with a man — a woman ought to marry 
A teacher in the school where she worked — raped her — thus she had to marry straight away
She lived over two years in a house with her husband and his parents and melted away — just like a candle Maria turned into a ghost
Once when the whole family went into the town bazaar she asked to visit the restroom 
But when done she jumped into a train that was headed for Russia 
She had no money — nothing at all — still she begged the conductor to take her in 
He agreed — she slept all the way
When she got off in Tambov and reached out to her father he did not recognize her
 
She never told this story to anyone — only before she died did she tell my mother
Watercolor of framed portrait on dark background, with small figures, one of whom holds a red flag.
Gluklya, Commemoration, 2019.

letter 3

Dear Doctor!
I’ve dreamt about an unusual tree I encountered in the forest where I had gone for a walk after lunch
Its blooming flowers were like hybrid hand palms
I really wanted to smell them and kept stretching myself up to reach a branch
But the wood was moist as if it had rained (even though drought has continued for two months already) — I slipped and fell into blood 
When I turned my head I saw that blood streamed from between the tree’s trunks at the roots
Strangely — I was not afraid at all 
As if this blood — it was what the tree needed and what I needed
Watercolor of brown tree with root system growing vertically, and pink and blue detail.
Gluklya, Bleeding tree, 2021.
I nevertheless decided that it would be way more truthful were I to scream and dart off as if I got frightened — which I did — laying my hands on the additional dose of tranquilizers—those that NV always gives me when I am scared — those that I love so much
Together with them — my little friends — the tranqees — one can spend the night on fire, have fun like in a movie
First one can speak with the Rabbit — as he can enter this particular rhythm-space easily, while I can attain it only by taking the pills 
He though — my dear friend the Rabbit — seems to dwell in this rhythm-space permanently
Watercolor of black skull with rabbit ears and red eyes, with red flower and small four-legged figures.
Gluklya, Black Rabbit, 2020.

letter 4

Dear Doctor! 
I must share with you the scariest dream of this week:
The Black Panthers have temporarily left me
Temporarily indeed — as the phrase “and then he will never come back again” infuriates me
I am scared of this fury godalmightygods am I turning into a man?
Since when did fundamental human emotions begin scaring me? By god — how very strange it is
But today the wonderful M came to visit and comforted me hitting the point just like she knows 
For instance she said: They just cannot share the power
This is damn right!!!!!
My communication with P proceeded quite so poetically
He turned with his best side to me saying that my diary can be displayed in a room — a separate room where there is only one book — Two Diaries: My Diary and the Rabbit’s
Because I consider it silly to publish a diary of only one person as we are never alone if we are good and healthy — we are always with somebody and some people calling it — God...
He then wrote me that because of writing he can neither continually keep in touch nor answer the phone
I understood that he contracted my obsession to write a diary on behalf of two protagonists simultaneously
But maybe he got scared of himself — as during our last Skype call he could not contain himself And began to devour his dinner right in front of me without excusing himself, blaming the lack of time
I got so agitated because of this that right after the call ended I rushed to the restroom to vomit my indignation out
Vomiting sounds woke up the black cats — they ran in and surrounded me — bristling and meowing like real bells
Seven orange phallic shapes float on light blue background, dripping red.
Gluklya, A message, 2021.

letter 5

Dear Doctor!
 
I remembered suddenly that I have never told you why I ended up here — every time you see me in your dazzlingly white room I am taken by such rapture that I fail to say even a third of what I had needed and wanted to say to you
So it all happened one July evening last year
I thought that…
My parents wheeled off to the summerhouse — finally I can draw a breath and continue working on my book
 
They fucking came to water the flowers by my window
 
My father beat me up
Hit me in the face twice
Because I sleep with men on mother’s bed, said he
 
But the thing is that I got nobody and I haven’t been sleeping with any men for a long time now
Father often provokes me in this way so that enraged I’d call the police and then they can dispatch me to the clinic because I have a record
I don’t even think that anyone could ever get close to me in this life anymore
And if this miracle ever happened I wouldn’t have a place to invite him in — because I don’t have a place to live I cannot pay for it because I’ve lost a job at the University when the management leaned to the right
 
I was so happy today after meeting a friend who treated me in a café. I was returning home in a good mood, even singing a little — 
In the flat I discovered my parents who came to water the flowers — damn those stinky marigolds strife pansies violets sluts!
 
Don’t tell anyone about this
That my parents are downright antisemites
They got violets in place of hearts
 
My father beat me up
Hit me in the face twice
They fucking came to water the fucking flowers
Now the violets they came to water flower all over my face
Because I sleep with men on mother’s bed, said he
But the thing is that I’ll never have anyone ever
Flower-loving fascists
Watercolor of light gray dress with dark area at neck and red dripping from sleeves.
Gluklya, Acceptance, 2018.

letter 6

Dear Doctor!
Today they let us out for a little walk
Hug me
The inscription I saw on the advertising column
 
How many people wish for that hug
Why hidе it? I wish for it too 
So when I saw this silly poster I went there — to a shop belonging to my friend an actor who got this warehouse for pennies and put together a performative vintage shop where clothes hang between soft porn primitive-style paintings
The Asian young man kindly showed me all the latest additions pointing my attention to the lace gloves
 
You see I realized that I wish to reflect the spirit of a detective novel in my story
For me the detective is Lady Marple, meaning she is probably the ideal mother figure, fulfilled in her becoming every day by every blessed dandelion
This mother seeks the truth
Watercolor of white head looking through magnifying glass in dark doorway, surrounded by small figures and red splotches.
Gluklya, Detective search, 2018.

letter 7

I think I’ve already told you dear Doctor that I began drawing on bed sheets
Today’s sheets can be titled no other than am I a trembling creature or do I have the right
Or just a trembling creature
Or trembling saliva
Or just a crushed mosquito
 
Today’s sheet is dyed with the spilt stains of cacao
Evidences of my extreme clumsiness spilling the costliest cacao as if it were a performance
In fact it is just a mistake of a mosquito
A mosquito that made a mistake entering a dead end
Gluklya, Girl in the fur coat, 2020.

letter 8

I’ve been stuck with the letter to Rabbit Senior for half a day, striving to fold a tempestuous thought into a maximally digestible shape
But universal language does not give in easily — thus some agony was necessary
Probably this is why my unconsciousness produced this pattern
But I’ll be most delighted to learn of your interpretation dear Doctor — what could be the meaning of all that? What signal of my tattered soul could you extract from that painting?

letter 9

Dear Doctor!
 
Today we watched a movie, me and the rabbits. It was about mother’s truth that keeps slipping away as the wind carries her off every time I want to touch and hold her
My mother dear doctor keeps a terrible secret from me which doesn’t leave me at peace
It is a secret of a crime that one of the rabbits has committed (but even I cannot reveal his name to you)
Even to you dear doctor I cannot tell what exactly this rabbit did, why was his foot torn off and half of his body and his head pricked all over with needles. It seems to him since that Mother-rabbit slips ashes into his coffee every time he intends to fly east. What to do, doctor? How to save them?
Gluklya, Our cinema, 2021.

letter 10

Dear Doctor!
 
I have to thank you with all the strength of my tattered heart that has almost already turned into a dress. The one I was wearing when I was about to learn the truth and was taken here straight away. On your advice, dear doctor. Thank you for saving me from a certain undoing. I got better after walking with you at the park. I didn’t even ask for tranqees. Thank you for saving me from unearthly humiliation, when I had to suck the male nurse — the junior rabbit — so that he would give me the sedative that is necessary to reach the blessed Truth. Truth and Verity they are one, aren’t they?
Do YOU agree?
So after your visit I’ve been speaking to the bindweed regularly. It’s been a week already that I reason with it to stop tormenting the poor tree. The noble blameless maple is taken prisoner entirely by the bindweed that keeps draining it, preventing the tree from growing as it wants. I hasten to remind that in the history of art bindweed symbolizes love. However surely this is known to you perfectly well. 
Gluklya, Bindweed, 2020.

letter 11

Dear Doctor!
 
My friend Valya, nicknamed Moss, informed me that mattresses disturb her. When she walks the street and sees a discarded mattress she gets an erection (moistening of vagina.) I suggested to her writing sentences on the mattresses — told her about Doctor Freud who reflected on the question of sublimation. Valya was admitted here because she kept throwing herself on young men. She was traumatized significantly by her father, then husband and as a result she opted for the free life of a divorced woman. Having no children she decided to embrace her desires and get free on account of pulling the trigger on her impulses. She got loose to such an extent that she’d directly proposition young men to make love in the alley by exposing her genitals. Just like the maniac dude from my childhood who stood guard by our kindergarten. One young man denounced her and so it is her fourth year here since. Together we’ve come up with and realized several actions, for which they threw us without fail into the reality room. You surely are well-acquainted with this space. I’ve heard that you tried to convince the management to cancel this room altogether or at least to bring some plants in there. The most terrible thing is that I cannot sleep there. If I do fall asleep for half an hour I dream the same unimaginably dreadful dream. A bindweed begins to grow out of my mouth first and then out of all my other orifices — first it entwines me like a straitjacket and then it climbs onto walls and ceiling until the entire room turns into a green mash. When I had an abortion and they gave me some drug so that I wouldn’t feel anything I remember falling into a black tunnel — breathing was so very difficult and it felt so scary such abandonment — that is you’re all completely alone in this world but writing this I understand that words cannot convey this horror of abandonment. Anyway together with Valya Moss we wrote on the mattress: Patients of all countries and skins unite! We wrote this with our menstrual blood since we couldn’t have paints. Valya collected this blood from several women in the hospital so that there would be enough for such a long sentence. A mattress’s surface always contains some synthetics so it absorbs liquids fast. For that reason we needed no less than half a liter. We felt such joy after the fact that we forgot that the world is divided into friends and enemies. Joyfully we dragged the mattress into our garden and leaned it on a tree next to the director’s window. After that we were beaten up badly and thrown into the reality room for the whole week. Tomorrow I’ll slice my veins open doctor — while Valya Moss will write my last word for you on my bed sheet. What word — you’ll discover later.
 
Forever yours —
Tanya

Gluklya, Vergaderen (Assembly), 2017.
Author
Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Gluklya)

Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) Born in Leningrad, Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya (also known as Gluklya) lives and works in St Petersburg and Amsterdam. Shortly after graduating from the Mukhina Academy of Art and Design, she co-founded the artist collective The Factory of Found Clothes (FFC) which uses installation, performance, video, text and “social research” to develop the concept of “fragility” – relationships between internal and external and private and public. In 2002,…   read more